The Rabbit icon is on the cover of the holiday issue, but not the year.

I also noticed a popular monthly feature in today's magazines was not yet included: the in-depth Playboy Interview. It debuted in the September 1962 issue and focused on jazz legend/trumpeter Miles Davis.

After visiting the gardens and enjoying a champagne tea at Highgrove, our tour continued on to Thornbury Castle, a 500-year old property where King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn once stayed. Today, it's a 26-room luxury hotel and restaurant in South Gloucestershire, England.

Doug waited for me in the hotel drawing room before we went for dinner.

This was the view (from the window in our master bathroom) of the walled garden; we stayed in the DeClare bedchamber on the top floor.

The next day we drove through the Cotswolds to the Oxfordshire village of Bampton, where most of the outdoor scenes for Downton Abbey were filmed. (Interiors were shot at Highclere Castle, near Newbury in Berkshire; the kitchen, servants' quarters and attic bedrooms were filmed at a set built at Ealing Studios, 60 miles away from Highclere Castle.)

The green outside of St. Mary's Church was where the fairground scene was filmed; Lady Mary was married in the chapel/Lady Edith was the disappointed bride.

Doug and I easily recognized Mrs. Crawley's house on the green, by the church.

Blenheim Palace - built between 1705 and 1722 in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England - is the principal residence of the Dukes of Marlborough and birthplace (November 30, 1874) of Sir Winston Churchill.

Like the fictional Downton Abbey (Highclere Castle), Blenheim Palace was saved from ruin by funds gained from the 9th Duke of Marlborough's November 1896 marriage to American railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt.

We entered Blenheim Palace - opened to the public for the first time in April 1950 - after crossing the Great Court.

Another similarity to Downton Abbey: Blenheim Palace was used as a convalescence hospital for wounded soldiers during WWI.

It was a lovely day so we also visited the Water Terraces, redesigned in the 1920s by Achille Duchene, a French landscape architect.

Before going inside Highclere Castle - the TV home of Downton Abbey - we walked around the grounds and gardens, designed by Britain's most famous landscape designer, Lancelot "Capability" Brown, who promoted natural overgrowth and rolling meadows.

Taking the path to the Monk's Garden, originally cultivated in the 12th century when the estate was occupied by the bishops of Winchester. The Carnarvon family acquired the estate in 1679.

Depending on the season, fruit trees and climbing roses mix with yew topiary in the Monk's Garden.

After leaving the Monk's Garden, we walked along the path in the Secret Garden, featuring borders planted with annuals, perennials and shrubs.

The area south of the castle is a meadow of wild flowers and natural grasses.

Our 2 weeks of touring museums, palaces, castles and gardens in England ended with a visit to Windsor Castle, the largest and oldest occupied castle in the world. (I took this photo around 5 p.m. on a week day - long after most tourists "called it a day.")

The weather was beautiful so we saw the 11 a.m. Changing of the Guard.

It's a challenge to see the castle's State Apartments, art from the Royal Collection, St. George's Hall, St. George's Chapel, Queen Mary's Dolls' House and gardens in a one-day visit.

Since Windsor Castle closes to the public at 5:15 p.m., downtown Windsor was not congested so the walk back to our hotel took only a few minutes - unlike in the morning when the castle opened to the public at 9:45 a.m.

Continuing on with our 2-week tour of English castles and palaces, we visited Burghley House, near Stamford in Lincolnshire. The 13,000-acre working estate has been the home of the Cecil family for over 400 years.

Despite being one of England's greatest Elizabethan houses, visitors will see a number of contemporary sculptures (this was at the Visitor Entrance/Brewhouse Centre) in the property's permanent collection.

The entrance to the state rooms is directly behind this tree in the courtyard.

The tour of 18 state rooms begins in the Tudor kitchen.

Turtle soup may not be on many menus today, but it must have been popular at Burghley House from the display of the turtle skulls in the kitchen.

Visitors will see a wonderful private collection of 17th century Italian paintings, 18th century furniture and wood carvings, and Japanese ceramics.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Bio

Doug has been a cartoonist for Playboy magazine since 1964.
For nearly 20 years, starting in the mid-60's, his "Doug Sneyd" and "Scoops" news cartoons appeared daily in newspapers across North America. Sneyd's talent has also led him into cinema: in 1993, he wrote, produced and directed "Black-eyed Susan," an educational movie-drama about spousal abuse, for the Ontario government. He was a founding member of the Canadian Society of Book Illustrators and has been a member of the National Cartoonists' Society and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Thirty of his full-page color Playboy cartoons are among the 235 Sneyd works included in the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa.
Sneyd was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, but spent much of his professional career in Toronto. In 1969 he moved his family north to Orillia made famous as the mythical "Mariposa" by humorist Stephen Leacock. He works on the third floor of his home-studio overlooking beautiful Lake Couchiching and spends his winters on the Gulf Coast in Orange Beach, Alabama.